Ranking All Six Of Lane Kiffin’s Hilarious Exits From Coaching Jobs After He Ditched Ole Miss For LSU

Where Lane Kiffin goes, chaos will surely follow. The new LSU Tigers head coach tried to convince fans that he’d turned over a new leaf at Ole Miss. But it’s now abundantly clear that is untrue.

Kiffin officially left Ole Miss high and dry on Sunday, threatening the Rebels along the way and using up years and built-up goodwill within a matter of days.

However, Kiffin’s toxic exit from Oxford is par for the course for the former boy genius, who has since become one of the best head coaches in the country. In fact, it would have been weird had Kiffin not left Oxford under dubious circumstances.

But where does Kiffin leaving Ole Miss for LSU rank in his lengthy list of hilarious head coaching departures? We’re counting them down.

Lane Kiffin Refuses To Do Anything The Normal Way

Kiffin is now a 50-year-old seasoned vet in the coaching world. But it wasn’t that long ago that he was in his mid-30s and considered a can’t-miss young head coaching prospect in both the NFL and college.

He received his first head coaching job with the then-Oakland Raiders in 2007 at the age of 32. But Kiffin lasted less than two full seasons in Oakland before an absurd exit after a falling out with owner Al Davis.

Little did anybody know that would become the norm for a man who is now one of the most polarizing figures in all of American sports.

6) Lane Kiffin Leaves Florida Atlantic For Ole Miss

The one time Kiffin did things the perceived “right way’ was in 2019 when he left Florida Atlantic University to come to LSU.

Kiffin spent three seasons in Boca Raton, amassing an impressive 26-13 record, including a pair of double-digit-win seasons and Conference USA championships.

Following the second of those championships, Kiffin departed FAU for Ole Miss, having raised the Owls from the bottom of the conference to the top during his short stay.

5) Lane Kiffin Gets Booted Off Alabama Staff Before National Championship Game

After crashing out at his first three stops as a head coach, Kiffin landed at the best place he could have possibly ended up: The Nick Saban School for Retread Coaches Trying to Save Their Career.

Saban hired Kiffin as Alabama’s offensive coordinator in 2014 and the pairing immediately found immense success. Bama won the SEC championship all three seasons that Kiffin was in Tuscaloosa and claimed a national championship in 2015.

In 2016, Kiffin’s name began circulating for several head coaching jobs. He eventually accepted a job to become the new head coach at Florida Atlantic University. Kiffin remained on staff at Alabama and intended to finish the season before leaving for FAU.

However, on January 2, 2017, three weeks after accepting the Florida Atlantic job and just before the national championship game, Saban fired Kiffin, replacing him with Steve Sarkisian.

Saban reportedly was unhappy with Kiffin’s lack of focus on the game, instead turning his attention to his new job coaching the Owls.

4) Lane Kiffin Burns Years Worth Of Bridges At Ole Miss

When Ole Miss hired Kiffin in 2019, it had just finished it third consecutive .500 or worse season under previous head coach Matt Luke.

The program had seen some success in the past, but it had been several decades since anyone truly considered the Rebels a true title contender. After a 5-5 season in 2020, Kiffin began to get the ball rolling in 2021, going 10-3 and reaching the Sugar Bowl.

That was the first of four double-digit wins in five seasons, including an 11-1 record this season that was Ole Miss’ best since 1962.

Which is all to say that Kiffin had reached god-like status among Rebels fans. And then, in a matter of weeks, he tore it all down. Kiffin began exploring other options when both Florida and LSU came calling.

Not only did he not immediately turn down the new opportunities, he also strung all sides along as long as possible, holding Ole Miss hostage in the process and routinely trolling fans online.

Eventually, Kiffin ended up leaving the Rebels for the Tigers, taking several staff members with him in the process. Meanwhile, Ole Miss sits at 11-1 and is preparing for its most important game in a half-century.

Suddenly, the man once revered in Oxford is now a pariah.

3) Lane Kiffin Causes Riots By Leaving Tennessee High And Dry

After crashing out with the Raiders, Kiffin landed on his feet when he became the head coach of the Tennessee Volunteers in 2009. Legendary Vols coach Phillip Fulmer was relieved of his duties following a 5-7 season in 2008, and Kiffin was seen as the heir to the throne.

He became the youngest active head coach in FBS football at 33 years old as part of a six-year deal with the university. However, Kiffin’s first year in Knoxville was up-and-down. He went 7-6, capped by a blowout loss to Virginia Tech in the Chick-Fil-A Bowl.

Kiffin also made headlines with multiple recruiting controversies before eventually leaving the Vols high and dry to become the head coach at USC following Pete Carroll’s departure to the Seattle Seahawks.

When asked to assess Kiffin’s tenure at Tennessee, athletic direction Mike Hamilton used just one word: “Brief.”

Hundreds of students rioted on campus at the news of Kiffin’s departure, leading the university to call in the Knoxville police and fire departments.

2) Al Davis Airs Out Lane Kiffin’s Dirty Laundry After Firing Him

What happens when you take one of the most polarizing owners in NFL  history and combine him with a brash 31-year-old head coach who has to step into a locker room full of grown men for the first time in his career?

Well, unsurprisingly, it ends in disaster.

Al Davis hired Kiffin to lead the Raiders in 2007 after an extremely successful stint as an assistant to Pete Carroll at USC. But Kiffin was well in over his head.

He went just 4-12 in 2007, and Davis attempted to cut bait immediately. However, Kiffin reportedly refused to sign a letter of resignation that would cause him to forfeit his $2 million salary for the remaining guaranteed year of his contract.

And so he came back for the start of the 2008 season. He didn’t last long, however. Davis fired Kiffin over the phone after a 1-3 start to the 2008 season.

At the televised news conference announcing the firing, Davis called Kiffin “a flat-out liar” and said he was guilty of “bringing disgrace to the organization”.

Davis and the Raiders also released a letter Davis sent to Kiffin on September 12 that warned him that he was on the verge of being fired for “conduct detrimental to the Raiders,” including repeated instances of making excuses and outright lies.

An arbitrator later ruled that the Raiders did have cause for firing Kiffin, and that they did not owe him the remaining money left on his contract.

1) USC Leaves Lane Kiffin On The Tarmac

When Kiffin took over for Carroll in 2011, the Trojans had only just begun to show cracks in the armor. An 8-5 first season in LA wasn’t cause for concern with Kiffin, but it did raise some eyebrows.

However, a 10-2 season in year two helped quell those concerns. At the time, USC was serving a two-year bowl ban as part of a punishment for improper benefits for former star athletes Reggie Bush and O.J. Mayo.

Kiffin once again stumbled in year three with the Trojans, going just 7-6. He was retained for the following season, but sat on thin ice.

After a 3-2 start to the 2013 season, USC didn’t just fire Kiffin, it did so in the most humiliating way possible.

On September 28, after the 62–41 loss to Arizona State, USC Athletic Director Pat Haden fired Kiffin when the team arrived back in Los Angeles at 3 a.m. Haden called Kiffin off of the team bus that was set to return back to campus from the airport. He and Kiffin then stepped into a small room inside the terminal, where Haden told Kiffin he was being dismissed.

Following the meeting, Haden got back on the team bus, but Kiffin did not. The bus returned to campus with all Kiffin’s bags, but the former head coach was left at the airport, jobless and without his belongings.